Proposed US Senate bill seeks further study of violent game effects

Senator sees study as potential groundwork for further congressional action.

Since last Friday's tragic school shooting in Connecticut, increased attention on violence in video games has begun to work its way into the US Senate. This week, Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) proposed a bill directing the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to study the effects of violent video games on children.

According to a draft proposal of the bill obtained by Politico, Rockefeller wants the NAS to specifically look at whether exposure to violent games "causes children to act aggressively or causes other measurable cognitive harm to children; has a disproportionately harmful effect on children already prone to aggressive behavior; and has a harmful effect that is distinguishable from any negative effects produced by other types of media." The bill further aims to determine whether any potential effects are long-lasting. The study would look at "video programming" in general, presumably covering TV and movies in the same rubric, but the bill also seeks to find out whether "video games' interactive nature and the extraordinarily personal and vivid way violence might be portrayed in such video games" makes the medium "unique."

Existing studies have yielded inconclusive and polarizing results regarding the impact of violent gameplay on children's behavior. While some researchers claim to see statistically significant increases in aggressive behavior and decreased prosocial behavior among child gamers across the literature, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that "any demonstrated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects produced by other media" in a landmark ruling granting video games full First Amendment protections last year.

A proposed draft is far from a passed bill, of course, but Rockefeller is not alone among his colleagues in using the shooting as a reason to put renewed focus on video games. "I think we need to do everything possible we can to prevent such tragedies, including addressing the culture of violence that may be spawned by video games," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told Politico.

"Very often, these young men have had an almost hypnotic involvement in some form of violence in our entertainment culture, particularly violent video games, and then they obtain guns and become not just troubled young men but mass murderers," Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) added. Lieberman has previously pushed for federal involvement in the game rating system.

While police have yet to release any details about the media consumption habits of shooter Adam Lanza, various reports from those close to the Lanza family claim he played titles such as Call of Duty, StarCraft, and Warcraft III.

Even if the proposed NAS study comes to pass, it seems unlikely that Congress would move to put any actual restrictions on the sale or use of video games in the wake of last year's Supreme Court decision. But Rockefeller, for one, seems undeterred from that very aim.

"Recent court decisions demonstrate that some people still do not get it," Rockefeller said in a statement. "They believe that violent video games are no more dangerous to young minds than classic literature or Saturday morning cartoons. Parents, pediatricians, and psychologists know better. These court decisions show we need to do more and explore ways Congress can lay additional groundwork on this issue."

While study is worthwhile, I think it will be for naught; indeed, if there is a link then what should occur is that the games can be used to profile people.

The other problem is that if there isn't a link, or a negative one (where gaming decreases violence), it doesn't actually help stop the violence; what is the best way to prevent this kind of tragedy? Dosing anyone who plays video games with paxil?

Moral panic legislation is never a good idea. It was a bad idea post 9/11; it is a bad idea now. In a very real way, congress and the president are about to repeat the mistake of George Bush and company.

I look forward to the study being thrown out and a law passed anyway "for the children", then the law getting overturned because it's ridiculously overreaching, then me cutting another fat check to the government in April for them to do the same thing next year.

I have played "violent" games since I was a little kid. I remember in the early '90s when I was 8 and 9 yrs old... My dad let me play the original DOOM (with his supervision). That game scared the crap out of me at the time but I never felt a need to go around with a BFG 9000 and obliterate rooms of people with it.

Since then, I've been mostly a shooter fan (not the n00b shooter COD style games). I particularly enjoy the survival horror and post apocalyptic titles. I've never once had any desire to go bat crazy and mass murder people. The game is just a form of entertainment for me and I can distinguish between fiction and reality.

The only way I can tell that a video game could drive a person to real world violence is if they have mental issues... In which case, they should not be playing video games. They should be getting professional help for their issue.

How many studies have there been over the last two decades showing that there is no causal link between video games and increased violent behavior? In addition to that, the Supreme Court recently ruled that video games are protected speech, just like every other media format. No matter what this study finds (likely nothing different than past studies), there isn't anything Congress can do.

Reactionary legislation is never a good thing, but it is always a waste of time and money. As has been pointed out in this article's comments, and others all over the web, we really need to focus on mental illness. That's the real issue.

The horrible school shooting in Connecticut was done by a young mentally disturbed guy who was trained by his mom in how to shoot guns, including one assault type rifle. Mom was paranoid about defending herself and her son from some kind of breakdown of society due to some apocalyptic disaster so, she kept these guns in the house.Then the mentally disturbed son took these guns and went on a shooting spree.

How could removing video games have changed any of this? I don't see it.

haven't we figured out with decent certainty that those that are predisposed either by environment or possibly genetics are more likely to be drawn to/affected by violence in any media? tv, video games, real life, whatever?

was congress not in on that? or are they just putting their own spin on it? do they live in a bubble world? (last one is somewhat rhetorical)

edit: and if they are predisposed, wouldn't they be drawn to other forms of violence? maybe their problem is the availability of video games?

also i see now that they are testing the predisposition theory.

the whole thing seems silly. isn't there like an impending fiscal cliff or something?

The politicians who are backing up this line of thought don't understand that all electronic media is now by definition, global media.

Somebody is doing something wrong in the states', but it has nothing to do with consumption of violent media or ownership of devices made for enacting violence, or everywhere else in the world where these 2 things exist would be in the same state. What about looking at the issues that are particular within american contemporary culture?

God forbid they consider the effects of cheap, easy access to guns. Or increase funding to mental health. It's obviously video games fault. I don't play games, but they don't hurt anything (besides maybe a bit of your time!)

I'm from Canada and we have the same Violent games, movies and TV shows and we don't go on crazy shooting rampages. I feel the main issues of control of assault weapons and mental health are being avoided.

I do however think parents should use take more interest in what their children do and the games they play and make sure they understand right from and and reality from fantasey. The media absorbed by children should be up to the parents not the government.

Also what are the chances of a bill like this passing allowing the study to happen?

Even if violent games and/or violent media did cause any "detectable harm" this approach would still be wrong. Violent media is not a CAUSE of a violent culture, but its the PRODUCT of one. Now I haven't seen research on how acceptable violence is in each major "culture" but it would be interesting to know if American, compared to other countries, see violence as a more acceptable solution to a problem. Something causes screenwriters and game developers to make things featuring a good guy killing hundreds of bad guys. If they are just giving their audience what it wants then the "desire" for that either comes from from consuming violent media and wanting more, or living in a culture where that is accepted.

Having trouble putting what I'm thinking into words so sorry if this doesn't make much sense.

I am so sick of hearing people say violent video games cause violent tenancies and video games in general cause anti-social behavior. I my self have played games since the original Nintendo all the way through to the Xbox 360. I played on Xbox live since the beginning and play with they same guys since then up to the new Halo 4. I am married, most of them are married with kids, and I have had a few local friends meat their girlfriends or wives through Xbox Live and WoW. I know this may be an extreme case of socialization through games, even violent ones more often than not, but its all about how and who we play the game with. Maybe more people should play through live services on counsel games, there is enough of that going on with social networks which apparently breads violence and cyber bulling. I for one just think people should just take what others day less serious when its said online and not go kill themselves over typed words, or kill others over words said to their face. To everyone out there, keep it real.... friendly.

I feel the main issues of control of assault weapons and mental health are being avoided.

Well of course, otherwise we'd have to address the issues of mental health and the proliferation of weapons within the United States. It's much easier to blame it on violent media of any sort and since the shooter played video games...

Asking for this study makes total sense when you've just seen this graph .. oh wait no, it doesn't.

But don't let data get in the way of your emotion-fueled overreaction..

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second -- that chart bothers me for two reasons:1. I don't see how the linear curve fit is justified. I realize it can be mathematically done, but it's not very linear looking data. I agree that the trend does not seem to go upward, but the fitted line seems disingenuous.2. USA is obviously an outlier when it comes to gun violence (and is the main reason the fitted line seems to point downward). So why is that? I'm guessing it's because gun ownership is so much more ingrained (and allowed) than in other places. In order to refute the claim that video games = gun violence, it seems like we need more specific, per-country data. It's quite unsurprising that South Korea has a low gun death rate -- the average citizen can't own a gun. So it seems improper to compare South Korea directly to the US in this regard.

One more rant: People should really reconsider the "I've played video games all my life and I'm fine" argument. We are not fair, impartial judges of whether we're fine or not, so that is not a statistically valid point, any more than saying snake oil is a cure for the common cold because my cousin heard of someone who took it once and was cured.

I'm all for looking at the data. But it's incumbent upon us to be as impartial as we claim we want our legislators to be. Anecdotes and back-of-the-envelope charts don't do any favors to this side of the argument either.

Asking for this study makes total sense when you've just seen this graph .. oh wait no, it doesn't.

But don't let data get in the way of your emotion-fueled overreaction..

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second -- that chart bothers me for two reasons:1. I don't see how the linear curve fit is justified. I realize it can be mathematically done, but it's not very linear looking data. I agree that the trend does not seem to go upward, but the fitted line seems disingenuous.2. USA is obviously an outlier when it comes to gun violence (and is the main reason the fitted line seems to point downward). So why is that? I'm guessing it's because gun ownership is so much more ingrained (and allowed) than in other places. In order to refute the claim that video games = gun violence, it seems like we need more specific, per-country data. It's quite unsurprising that South Korea has a low gun death rate -- the average citizen can't own a gun. So it seems improper to compare South Korea directly to the US in this regard.

One more rant: People should really reconsider the "I've played video games all my life and I'm fine" argument. We are not fair, impartial judges of whether we're fine or not, so that is not a statistically valid point, any more than saying snake oil is a cure for the common cold because my cousin heard of someone who took it once and was cured.

I'm all for looking at the data. But it's incumbent upon us to be as impartial as we claim we want our legislators to be. Anecdotes and back-of-the-envelope charts don't do any favors to this side of the argument either.

Its correlation. And simple one to boot. But it show trend.

What we really need is bigger data set though. And in that regard proposed law is GOOD.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.